FIFTEEN

I was drowning.

I was underwater.

But I wasn’t.

I was underwater, but I could see people. I could see people in white lab coats, walking past me. Nobody was paying attention to me. Everyone was going about their usual business.

My entire body was wet, but I couldn’t move. I could feel my body being sucked by something, some things. I was in water, but I was breathing.

Last I checked, I wasn’t a fish.

I couldn’t turn, couldn’t move. I could only think. My head was traveling a mile a minute.

In the time that I was awake, I had found out just a bit—my nose was covered with a tube which provided me with air, I was floating in a tank filled with abnormally cold liquid which I wasn’t sure was water.

The world outside was white. It felt like I was frozen in time, watching everyone else walk. I felt like a ghost in my own body.

I wasn’t dead, I could tell.

Slowly, the events leading up to this moment played in my head like a slow movie. Images flooded my head, voices came and went,